5 Signs You Should Invest in a Schedule Generator

As the lead scheduler, you likely aim to create a schedule that benefits your providers, is convenient and easy for you to use, and is an affordable solution for your practice. But sometimes, we get so busy and focused on our work that we don’t realize a system is broken.

It’s good to take a step back from time to time and gain a new perspective. Here are five signs it’s time to invest in a schedule generator.

Your provider team is frustrated.

Let’s say you send a survey to the providers you’re scheduling to get a pulse on how things are going. Would you be surprised to see these common complaints?

The schedule is unfair or biased.

The schedule does not meet my personal preferences or time-off requests.

The schedule is not produced in a timely manner.

A schedule generator helps you remedy these concerns by giving providers a certain amount of autonomy over their schedule. Shift Admin allows you to create schedules based on policy, not politics. Providers manage their own schedule preferences and submit time-off requests through a centrally managed system. They also manage their own shift trades that meet your practice’s predefined rules.

You spend too much time working on the schedule.

The providers aren’t the only ones that think creating a schedule takes too long. You’re right there with them. You know you should be focused on patient care or critical administrative tasks, but instead, you’re juggling provider requests, manually creating and updating the schedule, distributing the schedule, enforcing schedule policy, and talking about the schedule.

Sound familiar? You need a smarter way to manage your resources. An investment in schedule generation software will allow you to create and maintain schedules in a reasonable amount of time. Scheduling software from Shift Admin allows you to define rules and settings for your group or specialty that are then used to generate a schedule in hours, not days. Simply review the initial iteration, make easy updates, and publish the schedule.

Your paper schedule is static.

Provider schedules are dynamic; they can and do change at a moment’s notice. Static paper schedules make it a struggle to communicate updates between providers, administrators, and other staff. Today’s medical professionals need answers to critical questions such as “Who’s on call?” in real time.

A web-based scheduling software allows your entire team to access the schedule via phone, computer, or tablet. Updates are sent out automatically, in real time, to ensure that everyone is on the same page.

You’re manually entering the same data into multiple systems.

For the group administrator, consider how often you pull data together for HR and payroll reporting purposes. Once the report is created, who is responsible for inputting the information for payroll processing? It’s likely you or a junior staff member. But why duplicate the effort?

Shift Admin has a team of software engineers capable of building custom APIs and integrations with 3rd party vendors.This means your data can be seamlessly integrated with systems your practice already has in place. You no longer have to enter duplicate information into various programs or spreadsheets. This will save you a considerable amount of time and reduce human error.

You’re new to scheduling.

Whether you’re a new employee at the practice or just recently took on the role of creating the schedule, this is a great time to invest in a schedule generator. You’ve got the opportunity to bring a fresh outlook to how schedules are created for your organization. You can challenge the notion of “We’ve always done it that way.” You can help your group avoid signs #1-4 in this blog post.

Ready to see what it’s like on the other side? Set up a demo with the Shift Admin team today.